Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations – Have it your Way!

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 you now have options to deploy the applications for your business. Based on your needs you can now deploy D365 for Operations via the cloud, a hybrid instance (cloud and edge) or on-premise (local business data).

In this blog, we will take a closer look at each of these options enabling you to decide which deployment option is right for your organization:

Cloud

D365 for Operations has been available for nearly a year as a full Cloud offering and Microsoft is seeing an unprecedented global adoption of cloud business. There is no doubt that the future of business processes lies in the cloud and that Microsoft can provide customers with the best value with our cloud services.

Cloud and Edge

Businesses require uninterrupted execution of some of their mission critical business processes i.e. a manufacturing facility where workers need to keep the production line humming and avoid production delays, especially in lean manufacturing scenarios. Also, some geographies require that transactions and personal information be captured and stored locally.

Microsoft recently announced the plans for a hybrid cloud deployment meant to accommodate these specific scenarios, so that organizations can combine the best of both worlds – cloud and local. Dynamics 365 for Operations plans to enable organizations to run their business processes from application servers at the edges, meaning that transactions are supported by local application services and business data is stored locally.

The Microsoft cloud connection ensures data aggregation, financial reporting, intelligence, and more. The cloud instance also provides the local installation with data failover in the Microsoft cloud, automated deployment and continuous updates, and elastic compute capacity to infuse “intelligence” into the business process when needed.

This deployment option, “cloud and edge”, is a true differentiated option that combines the power of cloud and on-premises in a unique way to offer scale, continuity, and intelligence.

Local business Data

Meanwhile, some organizations simply are not ready to store their company’s mission critical data in the cloud. This requirement, in many cases, is due to industry regulations, country or geographic cloud adoption, recent data center investments, or an organization’s enterprise standards. For these customers, Microsoft has announced a new deployment option that will not require their business data to be stored in the cloud. This deployment option, “local business data,” will support running your business processes on-premises, supporting local transactions and storage of local business data, without replication of your business data to the Microsoft cloud. In these cases, the typical replication of business data in the Microsoft cloud (referenced in the cloud and edge scenario) is simply switched off. With this option, customers now have choice – an option to turn ON or turn OFF cloud synchronization of their business data. If customers turn OFF cloud synchronization, no business data leaves their trustee’s boundaries. Also, functions like, embedded Power BI, Aggregated Views and Azure Machine Learning services based efficiencies are not available when Cloud Data synchronization is turned OFF. Customers can choose to take advantage of the embedded intelligence functions by simply turning ON data synchronization to the cloud.

For the “local business data” deployment scenario, the application servers and SQL database will run in a customer’s (or its partner’s) data center.

Choosing the right deployment option

You should select the deployment scenario that makes sense now but also have the flexibility to change later. You can move in either direction depending on your business needs. For example, you might start with a local data center and move to the cloud when it’s time for your hardware refresh.

From both a technology and licensing perspective, Microsoft strives to provide choice and flexibility:

New and existing customers will have paths forward to license both local business data and cloud and edge deployments. Existing investments will continue to be accounted for in our licensing.

Customers can license local business data deployments via a Dynamics 365 for Operations license with Software Assurance/Enhancement Plan or a subscription model.